Page 62 of One Last Chance

They’d pulled out onto the road. “Mostly?”

“She came out to Alaska because she was running from an old drug dealer named Slade. She’d been clean for a few years, and we thought he was out of her life. But he tracked her down at this convenience store where she was working and . . . anyway, she owed him money. He followed her a couple times, and it was my bright idea to leave town. We actually came out here in March, went skiing at the Copper Mountain resort, and she fell in love with Alaska and stayed. I thought . . . well, I thought it was the start of a new life for her.” She looked out the window at the deep blue of the Knik Arm as they drove back toward Anchorage. “She got the job working for Peyton a month later, and by June she went missing. I never dreamed . . .”

And just like that, his hand covered hers. Squeezed. “It’s not your fault. Stop jumping.”

She glanced at him. “Jumping?”

“It’s a thing my brother said. Jumping to blame yourself.”

“It’s not a big jump.”

“Pretty big there, Sparrow. You couldn’t know that she’d go missing.”

She didn’t hate that he called her Sparrow.

“Did you ever consider, however, that this drug dealer followed her to Anchorage?”

She shook her head. Almost didn’t tell him why but, “Slade showed up on a slab in the morgue a couple weeks after I got back from Alaska. Months before she went missing.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t kill him, in case you’re wondering.”

He looked at her, eyes wide. “I wasn’t. Wow.”

“It’s just that, you know . . . I shot you.”

“At me. I hope.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t have missed if I’d wanted to hit you.”

“That’s ever so comforting.” He let go of her hand but gave her a grin. Then he signaled and turned at a light and pulled up at a diner.

“You’re hungry?”

“I’m always hungry. But my brother Moose hangs out here—or did—and the shakes are amazing.”

She opened the door, and he was right there with a hand out to help.

They walked into the Skyport Diner. Something out of the fifties, maybe, with a long counter bar with round stationary stools. A few patrons sat at red vinyl booths along the window wall. An order wheel held paper orders, and a bell dinged with an “order up!” from the cook in the back kitchen.

The place smelled deliciously of fried food, and pies spun slowly in a refrigerated case behind the counter.

Axel slid into a booth, and a woman came over. Long dark hair, a sort of exotic beauty, she wore a blue uniform and plunked down a couple waters.

“Hey, Tillie,” Axel said. “How about some fries, chicken, and a shake.”

“Not until you tell me where Moose has been for the past month.” She smiled at Flynn. “He’s a regular who vanished on me.”

Axel lifted a shoulder. “He hasn’t been around?”

Tillie sighed. “He might have asked me out.”

Clearly Axel hadn’t known, because his eyes widened. “And?—”

“I can’t date a customer . . .”

“Please—”

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